Even in a meaningless game with your B squad batting there should be some concern if they are no hit and you get swept by a last place team scoring three runs in three games and 4 in your last four.
The fab five starting crew were the only guys who came to play this past 5-6 games. I am officially worried.

What the Tigers did the past three games will be long forgotten if they win the WS. On the other hand,
if they get blown out by the A's, Dombo, and Leyland will never hear the end of it. Such is life in
the big time.

you also said 'I guess it really doesnt matter'...my point was I dont see history stating that this team that was No Hit by Florida will win a championship this year.

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It doesn't matter. It was game 162 and they weren't playing for anything. They weren't playing for home field advantage. They were playing out the string. It's not like they were saying, "We better win this game or our fans on PistonsForum.com will be upset."

If momentum is a factor, then we are out by the end of next week, and the team that finished the season with a 10 game winning streak called the Indians will win the world series.

The Tigers finished 13-13 for September and Cleveland finished 21-6. The Indians who trailed the Tigers by 6.5 games last Sunday finished only one game back of the Tigers.

Of course if the winner of the Rays/Rangers game can knock off the Indians on Wednesday after their one game playoff, the Indians after all that glory may be sitting at home watching the playoffs this weekend and will reflect on the sweep the Tigers laid on them back in August....

If momentum is a factor, then we are out by the end of next week, and the team that finished the season with a 10 game winning streak called the Indians will win the world series.

The Tigers finished 13-13 for September and Cleveland finished 21-6. The Indians who trailed the Tigers by 6.5 games last Sunday finished only one game back of the Tigers.

Of course if the winner of the Rays/Rangers game can knock off the Indians on Wednesday after their one game playoff, the Indians after all that glory may be sitting at home watching the playoffs this weekend and will reflect on the sweep the Tigers laid on them back in August....

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You're funny, Dre. I am sure if Tigers needed to win a few more games they would've done it. I also do not like rolling into the playoffs in this fashion, but I guess we will see what happens. We owned Tribe the entire year.

I'm seeing a lot of analysis that is saying that the playoff rotation will be 1) Scherzer, 2) Verlander, 3) Sanchez, 4) Fister

The rationale is that Verlander is better on the road this year and that he had a lot of success against the A's last post season. Also, he is used to environment/ pressure and could theoretically go again in a game 5 if needed (say Scherzer gets bombed in game 1 and Verlander is lights out for instance... though highly unlikely).

This has me thinking about Sanchez. The dude has this season's AL ERA title at 2.57.

I know he was injured and missed a few starts, but dang is he getting overlooked. He struck out 17 batters in one game this year. He took a no hitter into the 9th inning. He's 3rd in K rate. 1st in HR rate. 1st in adjusted pitching wins.

Interesting comments from Scherzer on Sanchez's skills:

Scherzer adroitly answered the question without really answering the question, making it clear just how much he admires the way his teammate Anibal Sanchez has pitched this season.

“Oh, my God, yes,” Scherzer said. “I watch how he pitches and there are certain things he does I try to emulate. That’s how good of a pitcher I think he is.

“Like, he does such a good job of changing speeds on his pitches. He can throw his change-up anywhere from 74 to 90 (mph). He can throw at so many different speeds, it’s something I’ve never seen anyone else do ever — to command the change-up the way he does and to throw it at so many different speeds. Plus he has a 94-95 fastball behind it.”

Again, that’s not a vote for Sanchez, whose 2.51 ERA is the lowest in the AL, because Scherzer doesn’t have a Cy Young vote.

It’s an award voted on by the writers, not the players. And he’s not campaigning for Sanchez, when his own hat is in the ring.

It is kind of crazy to have baseball come down to 1 game since every team is built around a 5 man pitching rotation.

A 2nd place team in one division might be drastically better than another division's winner. That 2nd place team might then have a 1 game play-in against a much weaker team with a worse record, but with one great pitcher (think of a Chris Sale type guy).

If the Tigers were in that position, I'd really think that it was a bad system.

On the plus side, it does make the last month or so of the baseball season more interesting because more teams are potentially in the playoffs.